But, as the following account from the Barbarians history shows, a critical development in the club’s origins had happened a year earlier.

“HOW IT STARTEDBy Hugh McLean

During the latter part of the 1937 Rugby Season I had a visit from a rugby enthusiast who lived in Thames.

At that stage of my life I was employed by Smith and Caughey Ltd and Bill Arbury walked in off the street and told me his sad story. Thames Sub Union were in a bad way financially and could not attract crowds to their games.

He suggested the possibility of me getting a team together with enough names in it to attract a crowd, I rang Ron Bush and we decided to have a go. We rang various people and in all cases we got a good reception.

I got hold of Bill Arbury who had a shop in Thames, and he, with the help of Ernie Brownlee the Union Secretary and Arch Dovell, the owner of the Junction Hotel got cracking on arranging a game.

Arch Dovell’s contribution was to provide free accommodation and meals on the Saturday night, Ernie Brownlee’s to organise the actual game, and ours to provide the team.

The A.R.U. lent us a set of jerseys and we all provided the rest of the gear ourselves. The more affluent members provided the cars and we took off on a Saturday morning.